In his review of the back then self production "An Epic Defiance" Vinnie had been very satisfied with the class of his countrymen DETONATION and apparently French label Osmose had similar thoughts and signed the band right away. Something that he had outlined a lot had been the great skills of the band and it is true, you rarely hear a band that is playing that compact and tight as in the case of DETONATION, consisting of Koen Romeijn (vocals, guitar), Mike Ferguson (guitar), Otto Schimmelpenninck (bass) and Thomas Kalksma (drums).

As "An Epic Defiance" (Osmose) basically is the same as "An Epic Defiance" (self production) you can already imagine that the description could be pretty much the same, hm? Hefty Death/Thrash Metal with a great production and compositions that you could not really call overtly original, but that definitely won't have to hide behind the genre greats and with that do not sound like any copy of a certain band.

After the intro "The Dawning" the title track lets loose in style and combines influences from Swedish Death Metal of the Gothenburg school with the newer Death/Thrash of the THE HAUNTED or THE CROWN category, mercilessly thundering straight ahead, but never neglecting the melodies, which more or less form the icing on the cake of these damn powerful compositions. And also songs like "Deserving Death" or the riffkiller "Voices Beyond Reason" with its great melodies, whipped forward by super tight double bass (most probably the best track on "An Epic Defiance") are proofs for what DETONATION have to offer - a whole lot!

Rotterdam's Excess Studio has been responsible for the great production and it continues to make a name for that, while DARK TRANQUILLITY guitarist Niklas Sundin has given the album a very well fitting cover, which rounds off the whole package very nicely.

Who likes bands like THE HAUNTED, AT THE GATES or THE CROWN and does not have any problems with the fact that this band is not from Sweden cannot make anything wrong with the debut of DETONATION! (Online August 18, 2003)